


Searching for a safe place

by Cats_Dont_Float



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, M/M, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-06-30 05:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cats_Dont_Float/pseuds/Cats_Dont_Float
Summary: Dave packs a bag and runs away from his Bro after years of being hurt by him. He finds safety with his internet friend John.





	Searching for a safe place

It's the middle of summer in Texas, and the heat is unbearable. You sit up in bed, finally giving up on sleeping, and push back the streaks of blonde hair that are sticking to your forehead with sweat. A glance at the alarm clock by the side of your bed tells you that it's still only 3AM. There's a plane ticket laying next to the clock and a suitcase hidden under your bed. Everything's ready, but there's hours until your flight, and you can't even think about leaving the apartment until you're sure that your Bro is gone. So you distract yourself by pulling your headphones on and playing a playlist of your favourite songs. Sometime during that you fall asleep, your music still playing.

You're woken up at three hours later by your alarm, and instantly start getting ready to go. You tiptoe quickly around the apartment, checking every room until you're sure that Bro's gone out. Cal isn't anywhere to be seen either, and you're glad he's not watching as you quickly change into a new outfit and grab your things. Once your passport and plane ticket are safely in your pocket, and all your important things are packed away into your bag, you step back out of your bedroom. As you leave, you turn back, and stare at your bedroom. You've never owned that many items, thanks to your Bro's lack of care for you, and now your room is almost bare, with everything packed into your single suitcase. You don't know if you'll ever come back, and so you stare for a few seconds later than you had planned to. There's a tear in the red curtains from where Bro once lazily swung a sword in your direction, and miscellaneous stains on the carpet that you don't dwell on for too long. You're not exactly sad, but a tear still runs down your cheek, and you reach up under you shades to wipe it away. You clutch at the shades for a second, the ones that John brought for you a few months ago on your birthday, and then you head away. You don't turn to look back until the apartment door swings shut behind you, and then you simply glance at the old door for a brief second, before you rush away.

There's a package of money in your pocket that you've been saving up for years, along with a small amount that John sent you a while ago. You use some of the money to get a cab to the airport. It's early, and the driver eyes you up and down for slightly too long, making you super uncomfortable. Eventually, though, he lets you into the cab, and you squeeze into the back along with your suitcase.  
"Where you going?" The driver grunts, once you tell him that you're headed for the airport.  
"Washington," You reply slowly. You see his eyes watching you in the mirror, and look away uncomfortably, choosing instead to stare out of the window as the city passes by.  
The sunrise is making the sky bright red in a way that is both beautiful and unsettling. You lift your shades briefly to look at it, and then instantly put them back on when you see the driver's eyes flick towards you in the mirror again. Starting to get anxious with him constantly watching you, you eventually grab your headphones, and close your eyes behind your shades, trying to distract yourself with the music. It starts to work after a while, and the journey goes quicker than you thought it would.

The airport's less busy than you'd expected it to be, and you get past all of the security quite quickly. Then you find a little cafe in the airport and buy yourself a coffee with the change in your pocket. You keep your headphones on and pull out your phone to message your friends. There's a few from John, asking if you've made it to the airport, and double checking all of your plans. Never before in your life have you felt so grateful for your friends, and you wish you could put this into words, and tell him just how much he means to you, but you don't for fear of looking stupid. He facetimes you at some point, and keeps you distracted from your situation by telling stupid jokes. He laughs at his own jokes, a trait of his that you've always found adorable, and his smile fills the cracked screen of your phone. Then his dad makes him go out grocery shopping to prepare for your arrival, and you're left alone in the airport, the sound of his laugh still echoing in your ears. It takes you a while to realise that you're still grinning to yourself.

Half an hour later, you board the plane, and find yourself sat next to the two most annoying girls you've ever seen. They're loud, and laugh for almost the entire flight. One of them's blind, you think, and the other one has a prosthetic arm which keeps knocking into you. You're pretty sure you'll have bruises by the time you get off this plane.  
You keep yourself distracted with thoughts of John. He's your best friend, and now he's helping you to escape. Sure, he doesn't actually know what's been going on at home, and he thinks you're just coming to stay with him for a few weeks, but you're sure that he'll support you when you tell him everything. There's pictures of him on your phone, and you scroll through them as you wait for the plane to land. He's sent you so many silly selfies over the few years that you've been friends, and they always make you laugh to look at. 

He's waiting when you step out of the airport. The first thing you think is that he's taller than you'd expected him to be. Then you notice that his smile is even brighter in person. And then suddenly he's pulling you into a hug. He squeezes you tightly, and you feel safe for the first time in forever. All your worries about meeting him for the first time are completely gone, and now you're just grinning to yourself, because he's here and he's real and he's babbling excitedly in your ear about how happy he is to see you.  
"Come on!" he says after a few seconds, stepping back and bouncing excitedly on his toes, "Dad's waiting in the car." He picks up your bags for you before you can even protest, and hurries away, grabbing your arm with one hand to drag you with him.  
John's dad doesn't ask you too many questions once you get into the car, just welcomes you, and then lets you and John chat as you drive towards his house.

John's house is exactly what you'd expected it to be like. There's a cake sitting in the kitchen that his dad has baked for you, and the first thing his dad does is put on the television and settle himself on the sofa, letting you and John do whatever you want. He takes you and your bags up to his bedroom, and the place makes you smile. There are movie posters all over the wall, some of them peeling off at the corners and hanging off the walls slightly. His computer is on in the corner, a message from Jade flashing at the top of the screen. The room feels comfortable, and safe, so different to your own bedroom at your Bro's apartment.  
The two of you sit and chat for a bit, and then he puts on a video game and you play it for a few hours. The whole time, you're thinking that you need to tell him the truth about your visit. And eventually, when he watches you ignore a call from your Bro for the third time, you decide to do it.  
"John," you say, pausing the video game and turning slightly to face him, "I lied to you a bit about this trip."  
"What do you mean?" He asks.  
You take in a long breath before blurting everything out in one go. "Bro doesn't know I'm here. I kinda ran away."  
"What?" He practically shouts, his smile slipping off his face, "Dave this is bad! We're gonna get in so much trouble. What am I going to tell my dad? Why would you do this? You have to call your Bro now and tell him where you are. My dad's going to get accused of kidnapping and -""  
"John!" You cut him off, "I can't go back. Please." You voice breaks slightly, and you look up at him with a sigh. "Don't make me go back," you whisper, and for once you give up on trying to seem cool and emotionless.  
"What do you mean?" He asks, quietly, as if he's worried that whatever he says could upset you. For a while, you think about not telling him the whole truth. It's embarrassing, and you don't want him to know some of the details. But this is your best friend, and you know you can trust him. "He hurts me, John," you murmur quietly, and when he says nothing and just nods for you to continue with wide eyes, you tell him everything from the beginning. 

By the time you're finished speaking, John is crying. He's trying to pretend he's not, and keeps wiping the tears away the second they run down his cheeks, but you can tell. He holds out his arms, and you fall forward into them. You realise as he pulls you close that he's the only person you'd trust to hug you like this, and you cry onto his shoulder for a while.  
"I'm not letting you go back," John says, still holding you tightly, like he's scared to let you go. "We'll... we'll work it out somehow. We'll talk to my dad and get you to stay here and then you'll be safe with me forever."  
You sit back a little bit, and look up at John, who's staring at you with a very weak smile, and you realise how much you love this idiot.  
"Thank you," you murmur softly, reaching under your shades to wipe away a few tears. He reaches out slowly towards you, and pushes the shades up on your head. You stare at him for a few seconds, and hear him draw in a soft gasp.  
"You always joke about your eyes being weird but..." John trails off, "They're really pretty." You laugh softly, and let him wipe your tears away, thinking to yourself the whole time that this isn't stuff that usual friends do, is it?

It's getting dark outside, and you're tired from your flight that day. John's dragged a spare mattress onto the floor by his bed, and your bags are dumped on top of it. You push your stuff aside and crawl onto your makeshift bed with a yawn. When you look back up at John, he's pulling his shirt off, and you instantly glance away until you hear the sound of him crawling into his bed. You're still wearing your clothes, but you're not quite comfortable enough to get changed in his room, so you just get into bed, telling yourself you'll put new clothes on in the morning. John switches the light off, and the two of your are thrown into darkness. You roll over so you're peering up at John, barely able to see him in the darkness, but you can tell he's staring up at the ceiling and not looking at you.  
"Dave," John murmurs into the darkness, "You're safe now. I'm never gonna let him hurt you again." You don't say anything, and just let out a small hum to tell him that you've heard him. John shifts slightly, you hear him moving his head on the pillow, and then he calls out a quiet, "Good night."  
"Night," you mumble tiredly, before letting your eyes fall closed. You get the best night's sleep you've had in ages.

When you wake up in the morning, there are so many voicemails on your phone that the sight of them makes you a little sick. It's still quite dark in the room, and the bright light from the screen makes you wince as you scroll through them. You put your headphones over your head, and listen to the first few voicemails. Your Bro's voice gets louder and angrier with each second, and the sound makes you feel sick. By the time you've almost finished listening to all of them, you're crying slightly.  
Without you noticing, John has apparently woken up, and he's suddenly by your side. You pull your headphones off, throwing them onto the pillow, and John drapes one arm around your shoulders, pulling you into his side.  
"He's going to find me," you choke out.  
"No," John murmurs, "No he's not." He moves his thumb comfortingly in small circles on your shoulder, humming quietly, and you leans against his side with a smile. "We're going to talk to my dad today," John says, "Okay?"  
You nod slowly. "Okay," you murmur, even though the thought of telling another person about this makes you feel nauseous.

You talk to his dad later that day. John tells most of it, while you sit next to him on the sofa and focus on breathing. His dad asks you for a few details, and when you start crying at one point, John wraps an arm around our waist and continuously tells you that everything's going to be okay. After a while, his dad leaves you alone, and you're pretty sure he goes off to call the police. John takes you upstairs, and when you curl up on your mattress, he lays down beside you and pulls close to his chest.  
"You should have told me sooner," he murmurs quietly.  
"I know," you reply, "But I couldn't." He doesn't try to tell you that he understands, or pretend to empathise with you, and you respect him for that. And you lay there in his arms until you start to feel so much calmer.

His dad comes into the room a while later, and when he sees the two of you there, he crouches down to put a hand on your shoulder. The feeling makes you flinch slightly, and he quickly moves away from you. He says a few things to the two of you that you don't really listen to, and then he's suddenly putting down two slices of cake down for you and steps back out of the room. The random appearance of the cake makes you and John both laugh more than you probably should be in this situation, and John grumbles a little bit about how his dad uses cake for everything. You eat it anyway, and then John curls back up around you, and the two of you don't move for what feels like hours. He's so much bigger than you in every way, taller than you, with wide shoulders, and the way he hugs you is ridiculously comforting.

At some point, the two of you both sit up, and John stares down at you for a few seconds.  
"What?" You murmur quietly, because the way he's staring at you is making you feel far too nervous.  
"Nothing," he says, turning away. You smile, leaning against his side, and the two of you are silent for a while. You've never been more thankful for someone in your life.

Two months later, you're still at John's house. You've had to talk to the police a lot, and you hate it. Apparently the story has been in the news quite a lot, but you don't know, you try to keep away from the news. John has become everything you need. He's constantly by your side, keeping a close eye on you, and you start to feel happier than you have in years.  
He kisses you one night when the two of you are sat in the dark, barely paying attention to a movie he's chosen. It surprises you, and you panic slightly. Then you stop caring, and let yourself fall head over heels in love with your dorky best friend. You've been searching for a safe place for years, and when you look into his eyes, you know you've found it with him.  


**Author's Note:**

> Wow this took me ridiculously long to write.


End file.
